We Make Technology Work for the City

Construction. Sometimes it seems like it’s happening everywhere in the City of Seattle.

A wide road view of active Seattle development projects that require Design Review

Now, with a new online map, you can easily keep up with every project on your desktop, laptop or mobile device.

Mayor Ed Murray announced Shaping Seattle: Buildings, a new interactive tool from the Department of Planning and Development. It’s an interactive, online map that provides locations and detailed information of active Seattle development projects that require Design Review.

The interactive map gives you many detailed options and opportunities to comment online and in person.

The app gives users the ability to:

View proposed building design and project status

Download project documents

Comment on the project

View upcoming public meetings about the project

You can click on any project and it brings up more detail including the timeline and any upcoming public meetings.

The app was designed using a mobile first approach and uses location awareness. The app was developed with flexibility to scale and add new map layers and additional data sets. It was developed by the IT team of Ken Schell, Julie Gephart, Reiko Feinstein and Tara Zaremba in collaboration with key business staff. From concept through implementation, the team delivered in just under 4 months.

The recommendations cover policy, oversight, technology, social media, community policing, crime reduction, training, education, and officer wellness and safety. There is also significant emphasis on the potential of data and technology to improve policing outcomes and foster community trust.

Through this effort, local police departments and other participants are responding first to Task Force recommendations within two streams of work: using open data to increase transparency, build community trust, and support innovation, plus better using technology, such as early warning systems, to identify problems, increase internal accountability, and decrease inappropriate uses of force.

Nationwide, all 21 police departments participating have committed to release a combined total of 101 data sets that have not been released to the public. The types of data include uses of force, police pedestrian and vehicle stops, officer involved shootings and more, helping the communities gain visibility into key information on police/citizen encounters.

For more information on the federal police data initiative, visit WhiteHouse.gov. If you want to see how Seattle Police Department currently utilizes open data, visit Seattle.gov.

Entries were reviewed by a panel of expert judges, including Francis Benjamin, of Washington State University; Adam Gentz, of BizXchange; Mónica Guzmán, of Geekwire; Susannah Malarkey, Executive Director of the Technology Alliance; Manny Medina, CEO of GroupTalent; Jason Preston, co-founder of Dent the Future; and Bill Schrier, Deputy Director of the Center for Digital Government.

The apps were assessed against a range of criteria including innovation, user experience and design, potential impact on Washington State, King County, and/or Seattle residents, visitors and businesses. They also had to be available for public use for the next year.

More than 100 people joined dignataries at the awards event, which included Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, King County Executive Dow Constantine, and Washington Governor Chris Gregoire (via video).

Winners of the Evergreen Apps Challenge will be named on October 1, 2012, at Seattle City Hall. Mayor Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine will kick off the event with $75,000 in prizes awarded for the best new civic apps, including two people’s choice awards. The people’s choice awards will be decided by those in attendance and everyone who registers gets a vote.

“The intersection of technology and society inspire our storytelling at GeekWire, and this event combines these themes along with one that is close to my heart: doing well by doing good. I can’t wait to see what the app developer community has created for this challenge,” said Rebecca Lovell of GeekWire, who is emceeing the awards ceremony.

Registration is free at http://bit.ly/UQkLvy. The event will be held Monday, October 1, in the Bertha Knight Landes Room, Seattle City Hall, 600 4th Avenue, in Seattle, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Music and light refreshments will be provided.

The State of Washington, King County, and the City of Seattle are alerting local applications developers that the deadline for submitting apps to the Evergreen Apps Challenge is only one week away. Eligible entries should be submitted before 5 pm PST on Thursday, Sept 6.

The Challenge is open to people who live, work or study in Washington State and Washington small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

“The Evergreen Apps Challenge encourages people to find interesting and innovative ways to use government data to improve their community”, said Ted Schmitt, chair of Seattle’s Citizens Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board. “This is a great opportunity for application developers, designers, entrepreneurs and anyone with ideas for improving their community to leverage the data our government creates everyday to create fun, useful and accessible tools for everyone.”

The State, County, and City have all made datasets available for public use, though any data about Washington State, King County or Seattle can be used for the challenge. Review detailed rules at http://www.evergreenapps.org/ to see if your application or idea is eligible.

Prizes will be awarded on October 1 at a celebration at Seattle Center.

Application developers, entrepreneurs, designers and students who are interested the Evergreen Apps Challenge and government data are invited to take a ferry ride from Seattle to Bremerton and work on their entries. Geeks on a Ferry will take place August 14 from 3 p.m. until 10 p.m. aboard a Washington State Ferry and at the Kitsap Conference Center in Bremerton.

Participants will board the 3 p.m. ferry in Seattle and have the use of free wi-fi onboard, provided by Boingo Wireless, Inc. Once in Bremerton they will spend four-five hours at the Kitsap Conference Center where dinner will be provided along with presentations about building applications with Socrata Open Data and ESRI Maps. Wi-fi will also be available on the return ferry ride.

The Evergreen Apps Challenge is sponsored by Seattle, King County and Washington State and offers more than $75,000 in prize money for development of apps that use government data and stimulate economic development throughout the state. State support comes from the Washington State Broadband Office, which is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and is charged withcoordination, programming, and outreach on broadband issues including opportunities for funding. The challenge is open to small businesses and individuals who live, work or study in Washington State. Learn more about the challenge at www.evergreenapps.org.

The Evergreen Apps Challenge closes September 6, 2012, and awards will be presented on October 1 in Seattle.

Seattle, King County and Washington State are teaming up to offer more than $75,000 in prize money for development of apps that use government data and stimulate economic development throughout the state. State support comes from the Washington State Broadband Office which is a program of the state Department of Commerce. The challenge officially opens today and is open to anyone who lives, works or studies in Washington State.

Three events are scheduled in August to build momentum for the challenge and connect developers with like-minded competitors:

Seattle’s Office of Economic Development will host City Business Casual on August 9, 2012, focused on technology start-up businesses. It will be held at the Alexis Hotel’s Library Bistro in Seattle, 5-7 p.m. The event is free and no reservations are necessary.

Geeks on a Ferry invites developers to ride the Washington State Ferry from Seattle to Bremerton on August 14, 2012, 3-10 p.m. Participants will have free Boingo wi-fi on the ferry and then spend about five hours at the Kitsap Conference Center working on apps. The registration fee is $35 for professionals and $15 for students and includes the ferry ride for those who need it and dinner. Please register at www.evergreenapps.org/events.

Spokane is the site of the third event on August 22, 2012, at Riverpoint Academy, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Developers will hear from ESRI and Socrata. Tickets include a light dinner. Registration is available at www.evergreenapps.org/events.

The Evergreen Apps Challenge closes September 6, 2012, and awards will be presented on October 1 in Seattle.

Over the April 26-28 weekend, some 120 developers, entrepreneurs and mentors from the public and private sectors participated in the first-ever Startup Weekend Government. They worked for 54 hours nearly non-stop at City Hall to create apps that use open data from Seattle, King County and Washington State. Sol Villareal wrote a great account of it on the Mayor’s Blog: http://bit.ly/IVTNvI. Check out the winning apps.

The first Startup Weekend aimed at connecting local application developers, entrepreneurs and community members with online government data will take place on April 27, 28 and 29, in Seattle City Hall.

“We’re asking the technology and start-up communities to help us find new ways to use government data. Startup Weekend Gov is a great opportunity to come build an application and make a difference in your community,” said Mayor Mike McGinn.

Startup Weekend Gov offers a 54-hour work session that begins at 6 p.m. on Friday, April 27. Developers will use data posted by the City of Seattle, King County and the State of Washington to create new mobile apps and business ideas that make government services more accessible and relevant to residents and businesses.

The All About South Park web site has a new calendar and a resources map/directory, all put together during a Seattle datacamp in February. The calendar is integrated with the City of Seattle events calendar. Using Trumba software services, users of the South Park site can see local events events and post, with the events being fed to both the city web site and AllAboutSouthPark. The City web team can provide this same feed for any Seattle neighborhood group web site that wants to incorporate it.

The resource map uses a database hosted on Socrata to feed the map generation. Both of these were added during a organized by Code for America Fellows Anna, Chach and Allan while they were in Seattle doing research for an open source city and community engagement application to be built. This event, bringing together geeks with community residents looking for helpful solutions, is a great model for tech sector/community joint action for digital inclusion and community building. See more also on the Code for America Seattle site and Seattle Communities Online Neighborhoods on the Net directory, which also uses Socrata for the data feed.